Live crickets are used as bait for fishing and for pet food. There is a substantial market for live crickets. Crickets are sold by mail order and shipped in crowded shipping boxes. At retail crickets are typically stored loose in a suitable bulk container such as an aquarium, wooden box, or plastic tub. Bulk inventories of crickets take up considerable amounts of floor space. Consequently there are typically more sizes of crickets available for a retailer to sell than can be offered. Quantities of loose crickets are scooped or otherwise derived from their bulk container such as an aquarium and given to the customer in a plastic bag or like receptacle. The crickets do not thrive well in the bulk container environment unless tended to with food and water on a periodic basis. Many do not survive. Those that do may not be particularly healthy if they have been neglected. The bulk container can create odor problems at the retail establishment. The display of loose crickets can be unappealing in bulk containers. Many crickets escape and run loose about the establishment or crawl into a neighboring establishment. Inventory control is a problem because it is difficult to accurately control numbers dispensed from bulk containers and because of cricket die-offs and escapes. Dispensing crickets from a bulk container is labor intensive for the retailer and inconvenient for both the employee and consumer.